*Space for Grace*

I feel like writing about why I am still giving myself so much personal space, even though I'm a whole 6 months into my acute leukemia rehabilitation.

Why am I sometimes slow to answer messages from my friends?

Why am I not speaking voice-to-voice, or meeting face-to-face with all of my friends?

Why am I not even communicating with all of my friends or family members?  

Well, it is very simple. 

I feel like I've been to hell and back. 

And after such an experience, some of us, like me, need extra time. 

So much space. So much time. 

The thing is..

My wish is to be able to approach life, people, and situations with an open heart. 

That's who I am, essentially. 

An open-hearted person.  

I'm porous to life, and I'm porous to the souls around me.

My wish is to move forward.

To be able to engage with life, without getting entangled with it, 

Then, of course, life around me hasn't stopped though I've been going through some tough stuff myself. There are other things, serious things, crises, chaos, and unavoidable adversities, happening very close to me. And it's hard. So, parallel to my personal overall recovery and rehabilitation, coming to terms with a whole new reality, a new body, new physical patterns, and rules, maneuvering numerous longer-term side effects of the chemotherapies, and working with post-trauma issues, I'm also partaking and being affected by life-altering situations in the lives of those close to me. Transformations, left and right. I mean, things are pretty heavy around these parts of town at the moment. 

And I don't know how long it will last. 

Therefore, it's life-saving to be able to turn everything off, be completely off-grid, and go sit on my balcony, with a big chunky scarf and a blanket, and a warm cup in my hands. There I can sit for hours, slowly enjoying a slice of cake together with an uplifting book or a podcast in my ears. Or simply taking in the views with my friends, the neighborhood birds, watching the vistas over our tiny town and our soft-edged mountain and its slopes of evergreens. Sometimes I indulge in some crunchy croissants warm from the oven. Oh, how yummy they are!

I love enjoying some cozy time with my parents in my apartment, just calmly chatting about life and spirituality as I watch the smoke from incense dance through the space with so much glee, so effortlessly. I love going for walks with Sara, my dog, playing Scrabble with Kristján, my love, lighting candles, and writing, reading, or playing some games for my brain on my iPad. Or color-by-numbers. 

Yesterday, Kristján lit a fire in our fireplace. Used a few heavenly-scented birch logs. Then we simply sat and watched, and enjoyed the flickering flames in silence together. 

All these simple moments are pure gold when faced with difficulties in life. 

My early mornings are also very sacred to me. Then I sit in my favorite chair by the window and commune with the divine in contemplation, in prayer or meditation, or silent witnessing. Then, when the sun starts to rise, and the birds come out to play I feel like I've been fuelled up from within! Fuelled up on some pure goodness for the day.

The best thing to do under such challenging circumstances, as I find myself in right now, is to make time irrelevant. Just allow it to be. Flow with it. Accept what is. Embrace the now.   

We need time to heal. There are times we are sick, and we need time to recover and recuperate.

These precious moments with myself, my closest, with nature, and giving myself all the personal space I need, no compromise, no FOMO, and no thinking about if I'm hurting anyone by my held-backness or how long this may take, is my greatest rehabilitation work. 

I abhor making excuses for myself, but sometimes, excuses are in fact very plain, innocent, no strings attached, good old-fashioned explanations.

And...

"You cannot merge with something or someone unless you have already developed a vast open space within you. If you try and merge with a person without this inner space you will become entangled with them.” Such true words of wisdom by Richard Rudd. 

I feel moved through my writing into Gratitude. To receive warm words from family, friends, and acquaintances, into my sacred healing space, words with no conditioned strings attached, only love and caring, have felt, and still feel, like a soft pink envelope, rose quartz colored, gliding through the air to me. Two birds catch it midair, and the third one opens it and with its strong beak lifts the golden heart that sealed it close. Inside is a colorful curled-up string of loving energy. Unconditional. No push, no pull. As the bird grabs its end and slowly reveals the unconditional threads of loving energy, they turn into a beautiful shawl that wraps around me, softly and tenderly. I feel all your good wishes as a warm embrace. I feel safe and loved.

Thank you 💜 all of you, who sent me and still send me loving words and well wishes ~ Loving energy that wraps me in comfort and compassion. No expectations. Just an invitation to be me. Slowly healing. No hurry. Thank you for letting me know that you are and will be there for me always and that I won't be forgotten though I'm still in my cocoon. Your words and hearts are truly life-saving, as it relaxes me knowing that you see and sense me so deeply, and that I don't have to hurry or be afraid of losing you, though my life has taken this sudden turn, and that my trajectory now is on a slower timeline, and that I'm more inconsistent communication wise than I have ever been.  

Now I’m reminded of an aha moment I once experienced when trying to untie a knotted necklace chain. The aha moment came when I realized that the more loosely I held the chain, when I somehow gave it more ‘wiggle room’ and just let my hands gingerly work their magic without me thinking about it, then the chain somehow unknotted itself, very mysteriously. So from that moment on that became my unknotting “technique” so to speak, and I use it to unknot anything in my life which has tension. Be it tense communication issues, a tense attitude I hold, or a rigid opinion, this is what I use when I find myself all tied up in a knot. I give myself space. Room to breathe. I see it as a great metaphor for everything that I need to relax into in my life. I don’t try to interrogate myself, violently shake some kind of a confession out of me. Yes, that way I might 'break’ and scream my real feelings out in the air. But I would be in pain afterward. I would be hurt. Hurt to the bone, and would afterward crawl even deeper into my shell. 

Therefore I believe gentleness, compassion, patience, and calm contemplation are the magician's medicine.     

One major thing I've finally had the courage to face about myself thanks to the acute leukemia, is that I am, or I used to be, a people-pleaser. Being a people pleaser is a weird entanglement of energies, as you're both very self-less, and, very self-ish.

And for the sake of my wellbeing, and of those around me, as this people pleasing thing isn't doing anyone a favor, I better shape up! In order for me to be able to move towards life, as opposed to hiding away after my illness, I need to strengthen my personal boundaries. And to do that I need space.

Hmmm....

Somehow when you're a people pleaser you put everyone else, and everyone else's wants and needs ahead of your own, but at the same time, your ego inflates, as you put so much importance on yourself as a fixer, as the go-to-person for empathy and warm healing hands, or as the listener, or as someone who's irreplaceable almost, that you've entangled yourself, and the other, in a web of co-dependency - a debilitating condition. In fact, co-dependency is well-rooted inner conditioning that may well take years to deal with and heal from, and you may need outside help, as to relieve your psyche from it. Or not. We're all different. For some, it may be just a snap of a finger and poof! No more co-dependency.

But what's important is to devote oneself to the deconditioning work, no matter how long or short it will take, to have the intention to liberate oneself from the co-dependency chains of captivity.
So here I am, a few months into my recovery and rehabilitation after very harsh and difficult acute leukemia chemotherapies, and I find myself neck deep in a journey of deconditioning. Such a journey, yes, it takes time and effort for me personally, but it's profoundly important. Extremely essential for my health.

 
I'm now on my resurrection journey, coming alive again, and this time around dedicated to being more connected to myself than ever before. Free of people pleasing. Free of co-dependency. I'm becoming the true me. And the true me shines my sacred nature. My sacred nature, our sacred nature, is alchemical. It is alive wisdom, ever-flowing, ever-evolving. It is always flexible and resilient.

Being authentic, in the most sincere meaning of that word, means to approach life, moving towards life, people, places and situation, unflinching, unabashedly you. That's coming from a healthy open-hearted space, instead of from a harmful people-pleasing place.

I've been through so much fear and pain since September '21, that I just can't handle the thought of having gone through all of that without me facing some dark inner demons, and releasing them along with my acute leukemia. 

I woke up one morning in the middle of my chemotherapies, and heard myself saying "I'm not fighting the cancer, I'm transmuting it". That was BIG for me to hear and experience, and called for even more SPACIOUSNESS.

So here you go. For a main dish we have acute leukemia served with some heavy deep inner work, making room for more light and lightness, and a side dish of serious family illnesses with a twist of issues and a sprinkle of drama and close family conflict. For desert, we're hoping you'll have room for some Grace. Chocolate covered 'cause we know you love chocolate :) Or would you like that as a filling instead mam? Bon appetite.

So you see, that is why I'm still giving myself so much personal space. Life has, and still is just so frickin' hard most of the time, that I need my space. And in an act of fierce self-love and compassion for myself, I'm giving myself all that precious space. Space for Grace.